


Just the Woman I Am

by oneoneandone



Category: Women's Soccer RPF
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-20
Updated: 2020-10-20
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:55:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27112258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oneoneandone/pseuds/oneoneandone
Summary: All her mistakes, all her bad choices, but Hope can't hate the woman she is, the woman she's become.
Relationships: Kelley O'Hara/Hope Solo
Kudos: 11





	Just the Woman I Am

**Author's Note:**

> **Prompt**   
>  _Can you write a fic wherein Hope and the twins watch her wife Kelley on her match against Houston dash in the NWSL_

The quiet moments are few and far between these days. But right now–

Right now both of her loud and precious miracles are asleep, safe in the overly complicated car seats her wife had insisted on buying, and Hope has as long as that remains true to continue watching the way Kelley dominates the right side of the field, pushing back attack after attack from their orange-suited opposition. 

Normally, she’d be cheering, urging Kelley on and the defense on, even from halfway across the country in her living room, but even just six weeks into this adventure called parenthood, she knows there’s no way she’ll do anything to risk waking their son and daughter from their naps. Still, it’s harder than she anticipated, keeping quiet, and she finds herself biting her lip, digging her nails into her thighs as she watches the Dash score once, twice, a third time. Three unanswered goals, and so little time left for Kelley’s team to even the scoreline. 

And Hope can hear Kelley’s amused voice, already knows what her wife would say if she were there to discover the little half-moon marks on her thighs. Something smart-assed about being able to take the girl out of goal, something that will make her roll her eyes and wonder aloud what she ever saw in the girl with smiling, laughing eyes. 

Something that she’ll deny loving to her dying day, and know that Kelley isn’t convinced at all. 

——

There’s a commotion on the tv that comes, of course, in one of the few moments when her attention is elsewhere, glancing over at the babies, and Hope can’t entirely tell what’s just happened. Except–and there it is, on replay, a goal. There’s fight left in Kelley’s team, a fight that Hope knows Kelley keeps kindled, stokes, with everything she has inside her, and she can’t help herself. She cheers, jostling carrier closest to her with her knee as she rises up to lift a fist in excited solidarity.

It’s Sam, their precious baby boy, who whimpers in his carrier, one of the only places Hope has found where the babies will sleep for longer than a few breaths, stretching his arms above his head in that perfect, baby way. And before the whimper can become a cry, can wake his sister sleeping in the seat next to his, she lifts him up with an ease that’s becoming every more practiced, ever more confident. 

His eyes are blue, and Hope has listened to Kelley wax poetical over them for hours already, from the very first time he opened his eyes in her arms, just minutes old and howling with displeasure at the cold, new world. 

Now he begins to cry in earnest, and Hope lifts him, carefully rocking him in her arms as she checks his diaper, just to make sure he’s still dry, before bringing her son to her breast, knowing that it’s about time for his next feed. And as he feeds she tells him what he’s missing, too small to take in his mama’s performance. 

“Your mama,” she whispers, stroking over his tiny, perfect soles as his hand comes up to bat against her collarbone, “is playing so well, Samuel. The only thing she’s missing is me there, directing her line.” 

And it’s true. Kelley, as ever, plays like a woman on fire. As much in the defense as the attack. Forcing her way down into the box, sending in those perfect, powerful crosses, boxing out any opponent who even tries to encroach on her box. Hope is more than a little convinced that if the Royals manage to tie the score, it will come from a goal scored by her determined wife. 

Hope feels Sam begin to drift off, already familiar with the way his mouth goes lax, how his lips smack together sleepily, soft and sweet and milk-drunk. And she kisses his forehead, his beautiful perfect nose, his tiny dimpled chin, before setting him down into the carrier again to sleep. One ear on the game, she looks over to her daughter, surprised to see little girl watching her. 

Kelley loves that Sam’s eyes are blue, but Hope loves that Addie already seems to have her number, just like her mama. She knows that it’s too early to be able to nail down what their children will be like as they grow up, that there’s far more factors involved than biology, but right now, six weeks into parenthood, she’s more than a little certain that if there’s a parent Addie takes after more, it’s Kelley. 

Like right now, this moment, when Addie watches her so intently, so contentedly. Sitting there in her car seat, hands grasping at nothing, tiny fists against the soft fleece of her sleeper. Just the way Hope sometimes catches her wife watching her, taking her in. Like she’d be happy to spend an eternity just observing. 

She brushes a finger over the baby girl’s cheek, smiling down at her daughter. 

“There’s a girl,” Hope whispers, and after a moment, brings her out of her seat to cradle her in her lap. “Not like your brother, just after his snack. You just want to watch mama play.” 

They watch, mother and daughter, as the game becomes more desperate, more energetic. As Kelley’s team pushes harder and harder, searching for that equalizing goal. 

And then it happens. A last minute set piece, a ball off Kelley’s foot, to the rookie’s head, and the whistle blows not a minute later. 

Hope manages to contain her pleasure, looking down at Addie, holding those tiny hands in her own as she raises the little girl’s arms up just the slightest, in celebration, in joy, in a replica of her final image of Kelley during the match. 

Wide smile, eyes burning with joy, hands raised in exultation, thinking about everything that led to right here, this moment. Sitting in the home she shares with her wife, resident of a state she’d never intended to live in, the son with her eyes, the daughter with Kelley’s patient expression in miniature. 

And it feels like, not for the first time, it was meant to be. Everything, every wrong turn, every right decision, they’d all led her here. To this place, this moment, this woman she’d become. 

“Your mama,” she whispers to their baby girl, watching as the camera pans over the field, the handshakes and post-game protein drinks, catching the relieved, happy glint in Kelley’s eyes, “she just keeps making miracles happen.”

**Author's Note:**

> "The Woman I Am," Kellie Pickler


End file.
